Ectothermy
by Archamasse
Summary: Bo and Lauren head out into the cold wilds together.
1. Chapter 1

Dedicated to PirateyGoodness at bo dash lauren dot livejournal dot com, written for a prompt.

Apologies it's two years late.

Set before Season 3.

* * *

Even in heavy biker boots, Bo's feet hardly seemed to sink into the snow at all.

Lauren hung back, choosing her own steps with care. When Bo was like this, so focussed on a quarry, the doctor couldn't help studying her with a guilty fascination. She may have been a long way from her native cityscape, but in pursuit of prey, she was still in her element.

Lauren could see only the back of the other woman's head, dark hair whipping freely in the wind, and each brief trace of her breath hanging on the air before it was snatched away. Against the doctor's polite insistence Bo had worn only her usual street leathers, but if she were in any way uncomfortable out here, it didn't show. Hell, she looked more at ease now than Lauren had seen her for many months.

The succubus' movements were graceful and efficient. "Perfect", Lauren almost let herself say aloud - her movements were _perfect_. Peering through ranks of tree limbs, gripping the rifle with the familiar ease of a lifelong hunter, Bo looked like she was born to be exactly here and now.

No, Lauren corrected herself; not a hunter. This woman, she was a _predator_.

Bo stopped in her tracks suddenly, and lined the rifle at something distant. The doctor could see nothing through the trees, nor did she see whatever cued Bo to relax the gun again, but Lauren trusted Bo's instincts wholly. She glanced back to Lauren, and started forwards again.

Lauren marvelled again at how uncannily comfortable Bo seemed to be with the thing - as she seemed to be with every weapon she could get her hands on. The massive rifle had been constructed to the Ash's exact specifications for a very particular purpose, and was probably the only one of its kind. It was cumbersome and bulky, but Bo wielded it with instinctive fluency, and the oversize barrel swept in neat arcs as she scanned the trees for movement.

The thing looked like more like a piece of factory equipment than a conventional firearm. Aesthetics hadn't been a consideration at any point in its design - it fired a gas powered projectile the size of a soda can, and delivered a liquid payload through a needle the breadth of a milkshake straw. It was a machine of blunt, brute function, and the impact alone would be enough to kill almost anything; but they weren't hunting just anything.

A predator, stalking down its prey. Lauren would never really think of Bo like that, but watching her now, the description suggested itself insistently. She was certainly lethal, the doctor knew, and born to be so; but even when it was as nakedly apparent as it was now, Lauren found her mesmerising all the same.

"Especially then", she thought a little sheepishly, burying that troubling line of thought with some urgency.

Bo led on as the wind pitched up into a howl. Sleety snow found every inch of bare skin, and Lauren found herself wondering again about how impervious Bo seemed to be to the cold. Her sole concession to the elements was a pair of leather gloves, and Lauren suspected they had been chosen more for style, rather than practical, purposes. Looking at her right now, Lauren wondered if she might even be _so_ consumed by the task at hand that she could be oblivious to the rising intensity of the weather.

The storm made it futile to shout, and Lauren had to charge through the deepening snow to try and close the distance between them. She hesitated before touching Bo's shoulder – reluctant to startle an armed woman prepared for a fight - but her caution proved needless. The moment she made contact, Bo's shoulders relaxed and her combat stance dissolved away. She turned and met Lauren's gaze with mild concern and gentle enquiry, and just a treacherous flicker of downward eye movement that Lauren enjoyed far more than she cared to admit.

And that was Bo too, Lauren understood. The sleek supernatural apex predator, and the all-too human being who wore her every impulse open to the air. Bo was all of these things, always and all at once. The capacity to inflict and withstand ferocious violence came as naturally and instantly to her as the capacity for compassion and gentleness. It was a very scarce and heady combination; one that could be as frequently devastating to Lauren's capacity for rational thought as it did to her instinct for self-preservation.

"This storm's not natural, I think we're getting close. We should be careful not to get disoriented and separated."

Bo had to shout her reply and repeat it once, and even then Lauren could detect the sharkish grin in her voice.

"Why Doctor Lewis, if you're looking for an excuse to stay close, you just need to ask!"

She shuffled the huge gun into one hand with little apparent effort, and stretched her free hand back to take Lauren's own. It was a sweetly childlike gesture that would have seemed absurd in any other time and place. Lauren rolled her eyes theatrically, and obliged gladly.

Bo's eyes lingered on her companion's features just a little longer than strictly necessary, before she marshalled them back to the task at hand. She stepped more cautiously now though, and Lauren fancied she detected something new and protective in her body language.

She couldn't feel the warmth of Bo's bare hand through her own glove, but the single point of contact still made her pulse pick up. She had long since realised it was futile to scold herself for indulging in such schoolgirl pleasure. Lord knows it had never made the slightest bit of difference before.

It was unearned, this contact, and that made it precious. An ugly knot of hurt still lay between them and would not be resolved soon. But even if, for now, it remained too difficult or painful to expose and confront, they could at least have this. They could at least find ways and means and excuses to navigate around it instead.

The awkward, precious link of hands slowed their progress even further, but Lauren's concern was valid. They were deep in the wilderness here, hours from civilisation, and rapidly approaching nightfall. They were already effectively lost, and to be separated now could prove fatal to one or both of them.

One of the two goons the Ash had sent with them had been incapacitated in their prey's initial attack; Bo had wasted no time convincing the other to take him back out on the plane before the weather deteriorated further. It didn't escape her notice that the men, likely there as babysitters for Lauren as much as for their fighting prowess, didn't actually take much convincing. When the Ash found out they'd abandoned their instructions like that, Bo's persuasion or no, Lauren guessed they may have wished they'd stayed out in the cold.

Lauren had known then - even if, perhaps, Bo didn't - that were things to go badly there would be no rescue attempt until morning. Protocol dictated it, and the Ash loved protocol. And even then, that was the best case scenario, assuming the unnatural storm abated soon. Otherwise, even if the Ash were to employ some of his more specialised resources, if they were to venture much further from the landing point, they would not be easily found.

Particularly, Lauren recognised with a private thrill, if they did not want to be.

Lauren had rationalised matters by reminding herself that they were carrying supplies for 48 hours - and The Ash's men had proffered to leave their own supplies at the pontoon before they took off - but she couldn't fool herself long. The danger they'd struck out into was totally unjustifiable, and there was no pretending otherwise. They had stranded themselves in the middle of nowhere with an aggressive, wounded animal, which was currently stirring up a storm of mythical proportions to make them feel unwelcome.

And they'd done it because… well, there was no rationalising that either; but she only could theorise it might have something to do with the hand clasping her own, and the woman belonging to it.

That hand released her now, and Bo wordlessly signalled a stop. She looked back to Lauren with concern and gestured a warning to stay back. Lauren backed away and felt her chest tighten with dread. Whatever else she might be called, she was no fighter, and she did not relish violence. At least this time, the beast couldn't take them entirely by surprise, but this was not as comforting a notion as she might have liked.

Bo readied the huge rifle and those predatory lines took her profile again. Lauren looked out into the trees again and could find no living movement in the swirling snow; but even in the midst of the storm, she could smell the unmistakeable stink of rot on the wind. Surely, she hoped, Bo had detected it too.

Suddenly, and even over the shearing gale, she heard a thunderous bellow. The treeline burst into a furious explosion of dirty fur, claws, teeth and unbelievable physical strength.

And that roar, that incredible roar, that Lauren could feel like ice crystals in her blood.


	2. Chapter 2

Bo was already moving, leaping out of reach of the Wendigo's massive clawed limbs, trying to put enough space between herself and the creature to secure a clean shot. It whirled itself around her, obviously identifying her as the threat. It somehow seemed to be everywhere at once, without offering a substantial target anywhere. Christ it was _huge_ up close.

Lauren made to bolt for stronger cover, right as the thing abruptly snapped away from Bo and bolted her in its monstrous yellow gaze instead. There was nothing else. She gasped involuntarily, and found herself standing stock, rock still. Her whole world narrowed to a pair of deep, blazing yellow eyes, and she was paralyzed. Totally aware of the danger she was in, and paralyzed.

Of course, she admonished herself, even past the immediate wave of panic. This creature is out of its mind with hunger for human flesh, and I've served myself right up to it. Goddammit Lewis.

The thing's grotesque tongue lolled from its skinless jaws and its awful impassive gaze intensified. It was able to take one step towards her before a loud, unfamiliar thud rang out and its massive frame buckled violently under impact. The thrall broken, Lauren stumbled on the spot and sucked in a drowning man's breath. She clumsily scrambled behind a tree stump and hoped to hell Bo's projectile had found a soft point.

Bo didn't wait to make sure. She was already priming the gun for another shot when the creature launched itself at her in a catastrophic fury. Limbs, claws, teeth. She rolled out of the way easily, and ducked under the swinging claw that followed. The beast howled in rage and confusion, and crumpled again as Bo loosed another projectile.

The thing got to its feet a little less swiftly this time, and now its awful spidery limbs seemed suddenly ungainly. Bo knew there was gas in the gun for one more good shot, but in the meanwhile her enormous opponent was already squaring up to take another charge at her, and she didn't have time to think about it.

She leapt out of the way and slid neatly behind a thick pine. The pine purchased her just enough time to prime the rifle for her final shot, before it dissolved like matchwood under a massive blow. Fuck, thought Bo simply. The bastard was bony, unhealthy and increasingly clumsy as the contents of at least one projectile deadened its reflexes, but it was unbelievably strong for all that.

Oh fuck.

She rolled to buy some distance again, and levelled the gun for the final blow. _This_ time, she hit the damn thing square in its thin, leathery chest, and the beast recoiled with a shriek. But_ this_ time, it recovered with fresh and desperate speed, understanding even in its addled state that they were both locked in the last play of the game.

It advanced again, and Bo realised too late that in her haste to take aim, she'd left herself without anywhere else to dodge. The thing lurched at her, but rocked on its feet and fell forward. One of its huge hands shot forward and pinned Bo to the ground, as the other sought to steady its mass. Its strength and weight was immense, and if it hadn't been so stupefied by sickness and Lauren's drug, it could have crushed her without a thought. Instead, it lurched forward again and brought its ugly face down to hers. All that was left in its mind was hunger.

It was very, very hungry.


	3. Chapter 3

"Yeah, I wish I didn't run my mouth so much when I'm nervous." Lauren said, over the many empty glasses of several sadly departed beers.

Bo laughed.

"Seriously? That's it? That's what you'd change?"

"Yeah." Lauren nodded earnestly. "Well, that and lots of other stuff, but… that's what I thought of. I mostly have a handle on it now, but when it happens, it happens bad. 'S why I envy alligators."

Bo, either too drunk or not nearly drunk enough for this to make any sense to her, met this statement with blank confusion.

"Oh, right. Alligators. Their jaws. They have really powerful jaw muscles, so they can tear stuff apart. Did you know they can't chew?"

"No, I did not." Bo said, the note of fascination in her voice borrowed partly from her own ongoing study of Lauren's mouth and jawline.

"No cheeks." The doctor added. "Everything would just like… fall out." She shook her head, with genuine pity.

"Anyway, they have really powerful jaw muscles, but only for biting down, not for opening up. So… they can snap bones apart and pull limbs off and what have you, no problem, but you put a rubber band around its mouth and it's done, it's helpless. One minute it's able to eat other tertiary carnivores for breakfast, the next it's a giant cranky log with teeny little feet."

Bo laughed again. She appreciated the image of a massive disgruntled alligator brought low by an item of office stationary _almost_ as much as she enjoyed Lauren's enthusiastic description of it. By no accident did the action offer the good doctor a glimpse of Bo's neckline.

"You know one thing you should never change, Doctor Lewis, is your endless, fascinating capacity for-"


	4. Chapter 4

"- totally useless information" Bo hissed, with a slight touch of guilt and an awful lot of gratitude.

The Wendigo's snapping jaws could shear off her fingers if she judged it wrong, but she didn't have any other choice. It swung its head down for the killing blow, and as it did, she drove the ball of her hand into its chin with industrial force. It recoiled, just long enough to let her seize its snout and force those horrid jaws shut. The thing shook its head feebly, but her grip was strong and its actions were no longer co-ordinated enough to be effective.

Fuck it, she thought, here goes.

She pistoned herself upwards as much as the Wendigo's weakened grip allowed, and drew a stream of bright blue chi from its lipless mouth. It was a strange and unfamiliar taste, one that she would be in no hurry to try again, but the action had the intended effect. The thing stopped struggling instantly and its hold on her loosened. It shuddered, and Bo realised that its massive frame was about to collapse right on her. She dragged herself out from its grip hastily, and broke the stream. The Wendigo made a baleful moaning sound, and wobbled unsteadily in place, trying feebly to base itself again.

Before it could even consider launching another assault, Bo had recovered the rifle. She gripped it by the barrel, and drove the heavy stock directly into the thing's awful, gaunt face. The blow landed with exquisitely satisfying force, and the monster dropped like a discarded puppet. It crumpled into a bundle of angular limbs, and this time, at last, it didn't get back up. Bo waited until the yellow light in its eyes faded to a dull glow and then, and only then, breathed a sigh of relief.

She tossed the crooked remains of the Ash's custom rifle into the thick snow with a note of finality. She turned to find Lauren had already emerged from wherever she'd gone to ground, and was pulling open her kit bag.

"That gun cost thirty five thousand dollars from R&D to construction, you know." She said, with a wry smile.

"Well, you tell the Ash that if he can find thirty five thousand dollars anywhere in my diverse and extensive portfolio, he's more than welcome to it."

Lauren replied only with a knowing shake of her head. The storm was already noticeably less intense.


	5. Chapter 5

"Anyway, that's a lot of money to not kill something, since when is the Ash such a conservationist?"

Lauren didn't glance up from her field equipment.

"It's a bad idea to knock a Wendigo out of the ecosystem for good. They serve a critical meteorological and ecological niche. Losing one can have unforeseen consequences for the weather system in their territory, and they keep a lot of much more troublesome underfae populations in check."

Bo examined a previously unnoticed claw slash through the side of her jacket and frowned.

"Seemed plenty troublesome to me all by his bad self."

Lauren smirked again

"They're usually perfectly agreeable, and very shy of people. I'm afraid you've met this one on a bad day. Besides," she continued, a little sheepishly, as if realising even as she spoke how absurd her words were; "- they're endangered."

Bo's expression as she chose a reply said many things at once, few of them repeatable in polite company.

"Well, I can definitely see why the Wildlife Fund went another way with their mascot." she grumbled eventually.

Lauren stepped between the insensible beast's scattered limbs, readying an almost comically oversized syringe as she did, gesturing with it unknowingly as she spoke.

"To be fair to our patient here, they usually look a little less uh..."

Bo looked at her expectantly, waiting for whatever unnecessarily medical term she was going to employ.

"Gross." She finally decided. "They're usually a little less gross. This one's very sick and it's taken something of a toll. Can you help me with this?"

Bo obliged, and together, the women pushed the enormous bundle of stinking deadweight flat onto its back.

It was indeed pretty gross. Its face looked just like a rotting deer skull, with a long jagged snout and exposed rows of teeth. Its skin, loose and ragged, ended short of its mouth to reveal sick, mottled gums. Its crown erupted into two ugly mismatched stumps, either the early growth of a set of antlers, or the remains of violently broken ones.

Its eyes, deeply recessed into its skull, still gave a faint yellow glow. Those eyes, Lauren had explained, could transfix humans and most fae where they stood, rendering them helpless. Succubi, however, were known to be immune, and it was this quality which had won Bo the contract. Much to Kenzi's disappointment, even Lauren didn't know how this immunity had been established, although she had to agree with the girl that it was sure to have been an interesting story.

The body was roughly man-shaped, but its sheer height and bony form made for disproportionately long limbs, and an overall profile that put Bo in mind of many childhood boogeymen. Parts of its body were wrapped in the tattered, roughly skinned pelts of more familiar – and more adorable – woodland inhabitants, and its own fur beneath was patchy and matted. Bo saw that one of her projectiles had landed uselessly in one of these stolen pelts, but noted with some satisfaction that the other was quite firmly embedded the flesh of its shoulder. Two out of three ain't bad, she thought.

Lauren was examining the monster's head as though cradling a sick child, her gloved hand tilting it gently left and right.

"You see the mouth here? How it's eaten its own lips and cheeks away?"

Bo nodded, with a grimace. Means_ it_ can't chew either, came her first unwelcome thought.

"Dead giveaway. Blackwood's Disease."

She paused to drive the syringe into the creature's thin arm with visible effort.

"Wendigos are very rare and normally very, very shy of humans. They subsist mainly on moss and carrion, which deprives other pest underfae of a food source. But sometimes, they'll accidentally wind up scavenging on a human carcass and contract Blackwood's."

Lauren jammed in the plunger with the ball of her left hand.

"It drives them crazy with hunger. They eat and they eat but with the infection, they stop absorbing any nourishment from it."

She stowed the spent syringe, and unpacked a new tool with a long, smooth stainless steel barrel. Bo raised an eyebrow in something approaching alarm as Lauren coated it with clear lubricant gel and loaded it with what looked like a massive headache pill.

"Don't worry, it's administered orally." Lauren said at Bo's alarmed expression, and she was careful to speak again before Bo could do anything with "orally".

"Anyway, they'll start attacking live prey and even attack humans, which just makes the symptoms worse, before they eventually die of starvation. I'm about to give it a nutrient bolus to tide it over the worst, until its feeding cycle normalises. A healthy individual might be driven to scavenge human remains, but it won't approach humans or human settlements under normal circumstances, it's not a carnivore by nature."

Bo frowned thoughtfully.

"This is a pretty remote spot to accidentally eat a human."

Lauren nodded.

"Our satellite photos tell us there was a single inhabitant on the island up until a few months ago. Isolationist type living in a cabin, off the grid, away from it all. He may have had an accident or fell ill and died, and a few weeks later, the Wendigo happened across what was left of him."

Bo wrinkled her nose. She took a moment to sincerely hope the guy never realised he was sharing his island refuge with a giant creepy ass monster.

Lauren, with a unique balance of medical gentleness and brute force, was prising the Wendigo's mouth open with her gloved hands. Bo, a little reluctant to get too close to that stinking maw again, nevertheless helped her hold the jaws apart.

"The good news is" the doctor began, pausing just long enough to slip the tube down the creature's throat and release the bolus, "Blackwood's is very easily treated with our enhanced antibiotics. By the time the juice from the darts wears off this guy should be pretty much back to his old self."

Lauren pulled the dosing tube back out, and carefully sealed it into a baggie before returning it to her pack. She found a large vial with another massive needle built into it, and slipped it into the creature's other arm to take a blood sample.

"It's actually kind of exciting to get a chance to see one up close, they're really rare now. Their habitat is receding all the time and they're very elusive. Magnificent creatures, I'd dearly love to study a healthy one."

In this, Bo did not share Lauren's enthusiasm. But she quietly enjoyed witnessing it all the same. She loved watching Lauren like this - loved watching her do or talk about something where she had no doubt or reservations or need to hold her tongue to be safe. She was an undeniably exceptional practitioner in her field, and it was perhaps the one part of herself that she really seemed to believe she could own. For Lauren, life was often difficult and complicated; but for _Doctor Lewis_, things were simple, and simply necessary.

The sample vial full, Lauren carefully placed it into an insulated foam container and returned it to her pack.

"Almost done." she said, uncertain if she meant to reassure her increasingly restless inhuman companion or her completely unresponsive inhuman patient.

"You know they're cold blooded? Literally, their blood is cold. You can't store it in glass containers or they shatter."

The hint of a smirk touched Bo's lips.

"I'll be sure to let Kenzi know next time she's mixing her own exotic cocktails in the Dal."

Lauren now unpacked the twin parts of an interlocking tracking collar, and with Bo's help, fitted it around the beast's filthy throat. They both gamely resisted noting aloud that the fur here was clumped thick with old blood.

"Are you going to have to do this again whenever the battery on that thing runs out?" Bo asked, trying not to sound as unenthused as that prospect truly made her feel.

"Oh no, I'll be long gone by then." Lauren replied immediately, and winced at her choice of words when she felt Bo stiffen.

"What I mean is, the beacon is kinetically driven. It will lay dormant so long as he does, but as soon as he starts moving, it will cycle up and start charging itself. Wendigos have four digit lifespans, so the collar is designed to match."

She adjusted it carefully, ensuring that she left enough room for the animal to recover weight without injury. She secured it into place with a very conclusive sounding lock and gathered her stray equipment back into the neatly organised pack. Bo, no longer required to play great white hunter, offered to shoulder the burden, and just this once Lauren permitted herself to play the feeble human card and accept.

Lauren took a moment to scribble some quick clinical observations into an uncharacteristically battered little pocketbook. She noted, with weary dismay, that her handwriting had indeed deteriorated into the cliché doctor's scrawl her mother had warned of, and stowed it away. She'd type up a full report when she got back, but that would do for now.

She gave the creature one last look over, and nodded to herself with satisfaction. Bo, who'd just spotted the clear indentation of her boot on the beast's naked skin, took just as much pride in seeing the evidence of her own job well done.

"Well, we should probably find shelter for the night." Lauren pronounced conclusively, amazing herself at how simple she made that proposition sound.

Bo pulled her jacket tighter about her body.

"Do we know where Unabomber Junior had his cabin? I could really go for being indoors right about now."

Lauren pulled out a GPS, and Bo marvelled again at how she managed to stash so many pieces of expensive equipment about her elegant person.

"We'll have to track back the way we came. We can pick up the supplies the Ash's men left, and then head a little North. We should be able to make it there before nightfall if we hurry."

Bo shivered. Hurrying sounded good.


	6. Chapter 6

"You know this place would be really scenic if it wasn't like, monster haunted."

The weather had subsided a little more as the monster's tantrum abated, and they had made good time back to the drop off point. The seaplane was long gone, but the Ash's men had left their packs behind as promised, secured to one of the posts on the little wooden pontoon. The water was choppy, and surrounding mountains were largely obscured by the weather, but it was indeed beautiful. Lauren had to admit, the cabin dweller had enjoyed a hell of a view.

Their progress from there to the cabin itself was slower. They were now carrying three packs between them, and the snow was thicker as the woods thinned. Lauren couldn't help notice that the cold starting to take an increasing toll on Bo. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her own body, and the doctor had noticed a tremble tugging at her mouth.

"Wendigos need virgin wilderness to survive" Lauren explained, trying to hide her growing concern.

"That's one of the reasons for their decline actually, the available habitat for them is shrinking all the time."

"My heart bleeds" grumbled Bo, earning a wry glance of mock reproval.

"Well, if you think about it, they were here first, _we're_ the intruders. And God knows what global warming is going to mean for them. That's actually part of the reason the Ash is so concerned about them, they're elementally attuned, and that could be something he'll need to really explore in the near future if another solution isn't found soon. They're very sensitive to temperature, but they can also affect it. Their whole metabolism, reproductive cycle, everything right down to their fundamental energy, it's all tied to cold. Besides, like I said, they're not generally aggressive. Usually, if threatened, they'll try and ward off interlopers by manipulating the local weather to cover their-"

Bo stopped in her tracks abruptly.

"Wait, hold up, what did you say?"

"What?"

Bo's words came hissed through chattering teeth.

"About their fundamental life energy? As in... their _chi?_ It's all cold? Is that why I'm so fucking cold right now?"

Lauren's initial confusion turned over into a wincing realisation.

"Are you… You fed from the wendigo?"

Bo replied with a juddering nod.

"Daddy Long Legs had me in a corner and I was hurting, so I multitasked."

Lauren's expression back did not quell Bo's gathering alarm.

"This isn't good."

Bo's heart sank like lead.

"This didn't come up during the briefing? Lauren I'm a succubus, for Christ's sake."

"It was all in the file we gave you! I'm so sorry Bo, I should have gone over it with you, I just… It never occurred to me that you might get so close, or have to feed from the Wendigo, or… that you'd even try. I mean it's so…"

Bo glowered impatiently while the doctor's empty hands seemed to grasp for the word in the air.

"…gross."

The doctor cringed apologetically. Bo fixed her with a distinctly unamused glare.

Lauren paused thoughtfully for a moment, and took a deep breath to compose herself. When she spoke again, it was with a reassuringly purposeful tone. Doctor Lewis all over.

"Okay. It's okay. Look, we need to get you to the cabin so we can keep you warm for the brunt of it. I have to tell you now, you're going to get worse before you get better."

Bo, wide eyed, struggled to fight down a rising panic.

"Lauren, just tell me. How bad is this?"

Lauren's hand lingered on one of the succubus' shoulders for a moment.

"It's not that bad. It's going to be okay. Look, it's not going to be fatal, but I'm not going to lie to you, you could be in for a miserable night. There have been documented cases of chi feeders inadvertently preying on elementally based creatures in the past, and it's never been known to be fatal. The good news is the effect is temporary, the bad news is, you just have to let it run its course. It's like a fever, all we can do is make you comfortable and wait it out."

Bo digested this, and nodded, a little calmer now.

"Alright. Alright, if you say so. In the meantime, I don't suppose you know any disreputable bars in the neighbourhood?"

Lauren smiled, relieved Bo had apparently found her sense of humour again, but shook her head ruefully.

"I'm afraid it wouldn't help. Your own chi has been contaminated now, feeding again wouldn't make any difference until that's metabolised."

Bo tried in vain to tighten her jaw against the shivering.

"Well then yeah. I guess we better keep moving."

They walked on in increasingly uncomfortable silence for some time. Lauren stopped to consult her GPS a few times, and at some point they had linked hands again. It hampered their pace even further, but she could tell that by now Bo was really suffering. She pulled off her own jacket and wrapped it around Bo. Bo, already too cold now to protest, accepted it gladly.


	7. Chapter 7

It was strange to see Bo huddled and hunched, her body contracted against the cold both within and without. She was wearing one massive pack, and dragging another, and although the weight didn't seem to bother her at all, it meant she could only use one arm at a time to insulate herself.

Even if Bo weren't ill, night was approaching, and by now the temperature was already dropping. And though the wind was much weaker than it had been, without her jacket, Lauren could feel its effects far more keenly. The satellite images they were using to navigate were accurate to a degree far beyond that of civilian equipment, but all the same, she would be very glad when the cabin actually came into view.

Bo wasn't sure how long they'd gone on like this. She dimly felt the differing depths of snow, hardly registering any landmarks of the journey at all, relying Lauren to lead her. It was as though the cold had drained the life and colour out of the whole world. She could feel it on her face, in her blood, in the air in her lungs. It settled on her skin, and it seeped out from her bones. And it was claiming more than her body; she could barely think about anything else. Anything but the cold - God she was so cold - and the warmth of the hand leading hers, which felt somehow a million miles away.

She heard Lauren say that they didn't have far left to go, and felt herself nod. By now, she had to fight for each step – one, then another, then again. As they came to the top of a ridge, Bo's step failed, and she fell forward into the snow. Lauren, trying not to show her alarm, helped her back up. Without a word, she pulled the succubus' arm over her own shoulders to support her. Bo was trying, but Lauren was holding her up as much as she was pushing her onwards.

"We're almost there Bo, look you can see the cabin from here. We're almost there."

Bo nodded, not even bothering to raise her head. In this awkward half embrace, she could feel the warmth of Lauren's breath on her face as she spoke, and little else seemed to matter.

Lauren took all three of their packs, and, making sure they were all secured, shoved them all down the virgin side of the hill. It was a steep enough drop that they rolled more than half way down on their own. She slipped her free arm around Bo's waist, and together they made their own way down in a difficult, stumbling action. Bo was not heavy, but Lauren was neither built for - or accustomed to - manhandling someone through adverse weather conditions anymore. The slope was on their side, but not a single inch of the distance was cheaply won.

When they reached the point where the three packs had gathered, Lauren had to stop for a moment to take stock. Bo allowed her to put one of the packs on her back, and she took another. She thought about it for a few moments, and reluctantly decided to leave the other behind, for now at least. The cabin wasn't far and they could come back for it if they needed to.

The last stretch was a battle. It wasn't just the sheer physical effort demanded from Lauren, but seeing – and this close, feeling – how much Bo was suffering was almost unbearable. She knew that Bo would probably be fine, but looking at the state of her now, feeling her wrack for each breath, it was difficult to believe. Her shivering had become almost convulsive, shaking violently, and she seemed totally lost in herself.

The last few metres at least offered solid ground to walk on. The cabin's occupant had evidently set down a stone path to the doorway; for that small mercy, Lauren silently wished him a mercifully painless death, whatever it might have been. Bo walked these last few steps under her own strength, and they both stumbled up onto the sheltered porch gracelessly. Bo pulled the massive padlock off the door bolt without a word, and Lauren pulled the bolt over. She barged the door open inelegantly, and they both fell into the cabin into a messy bundle of exhausted bodies and crumpling foul weather fabric. She pulled herself back up to her feet, but Bo stayed right where she lay, curling tighter against herself.


	8. Chapter 8

Lauren pulled Bo out of her backpack, and dragged them both further in the door. She kicked it shut with such force it made her stumble a little, before her attention returned to Bo. Sheltered from the worst of the weather, she was already more cooperative and coherent.

"Nice loveshack you've got here." she drawled, and Lauren gave her a strained smile.

Lauren tore through the contents of her pack and pulled out a survival blanket and a small, powerful, standalone lamp. She bundled Bo up in rattling foil and quickly scanned around for something she could use. She would have_ liked_ to find a warm saline line ready, but she wasn't holding her breath.

The cabin had obviously been uninhabited for weeks - if not months - but it had clearly been a home to someone once. It was sparsely appointed, but sturdily built, and every single thing in it had been carefully selected and well used. The former owner had obviously been good with his hands - the few basic amenities she could see had all been repaired, improved or somehow modified. From the main living area - where they were now - she could see the other two rooms, a small bathroom and a slightly larger bedroom. There was a little kitchen" area in the corner, with some cooking equipment, but the whole space was clearly centred around the surprisingly elaborate stone fireplace. The fireplace, and the ugly rug in front of it, apparently represented the occupant's sole compromise to a kind of luxury. Lauren quickly helped Bo stagger over to the rug - bearskin, of course it was a bearskin – and helped her lay down on it. Bo looked up at her, waiting to find out what was supposed to happen next.

Lauren hoped she sounded calmer than she felt.

"I'm going to get a fire going real quick, I'm right here, okay?"

Lauren realised her hand was already moving to brush a stray lock of hair from Bo's face, and had it pull off a glove instead. She took a deep breath and quickly found something else to look at.

Bo nodded slowly, as if only now registering what Lauren had said.

There was a pyramid of cobweb-strung kindling already set, and Lauren threw in a fuel pellet from the portable stove in their own supplies to give it a headstart. There was more than enough firewood for the night stacked against the wall, and more outside the door. Lauren said another silent prayer of gratitude to paranoid anti-government loners everywhere. The fire lit easily, and she loaded it generously.

"I'm going to go look for some blankets, I'll be right back okay?"

Bo held her gaze and nodded slowly, and Lauren felt a physical ache bloom in her chest. Even if this sickness wasn't supercharged, Bo was not a well practiced patient, with her enhanced immunity Lauren doubted she'd ever had a conventional illness in her life. It was alien to see her rendered so vulnerable like this, and Lauren hated it.

The blankets and quilts she found were a little fusty, but they were heavy and warm. After some consideration, she left the sheets behind on the bed; lonesome bachelor in a cabin and all. She also found an oil lamp, a large bottle of terrible scotch and a heavy flannel shirt. With some difficulty, she managed to drag her bounty back to the living room in one trip.

She found Bo exactly as she'd left her. She dumped the bedding on the ground and set out the oil lamp.

"Mmmph-mood lighting, ugly blankets and shitty scotch? Lauren, sometimes I think you know me _too_ well."

Lauren gave a lopsided smirk. Bo's attempt at humour was reassuring, even if the effort it was still clearly costing her was not.

"I have a hunch I'd find a chloroform soaked rag somewhere in this place if I looked hard enough, so I chose not to."

Bo offered her a watery smile, and Lauren enjoyed it for a second before proceeding. The doctor was a professional first and foremost - and Lord only knew that Bo was not shy about her body - but too much had happened between them for those two points to be the only considerations. She took a deep breath.

"Bo, you're going to need to change out of those clothes now, or they'll keep sapping away your body heat."

Bo regarded her a little incredulously.

"Do you think you can do it by yourself?"

Her patient considered the question, then shook her head weakly and shuddered again. The prospect of wearing anything less than she was right now, even if only temporarily, was daunting. She sucked down a long draft of whisky, which was every bit as horrible as she expected, and sat up as best she could.

Lauren nodded. She carefully slipped off both of Bo's jackets and replaced the survival blanket with one of the ugly brown quilts she'd found. She had Bo hold it up as well as she could in a feeble gesture towards modesty, and in an absurdly difficult manoeuvre of averted eyes and alternating limbs, managed to pull Bo's shirt over her head. She gently slid the flannel shirt on one arm, and then the other, and wrapped the blanket back around.

"Better?"

"Better" Bo nodded.

She laid Bo down on the rug again, and pulled another blanket over her.

"I'm going to take off your boots and pants now, okay?"

"Your come-ons need work" came the forced reply.

She wrestled each of the boots off in turn, and with a heroic display of impassivity, pulled off Bo's leathers. It wasn't a fear of being overcome by a sudden attack of hysterical lust - or even Bo's merciless supernatural capacity to detect exactly that - which bothered her. Rather she feared, desperately, that she might somehow mishandle the situation, and reopen any of their all-too-thin common scar tissue. The strange armistice they had come to was precious and delicate, and Lauren was painfully afraid of endangering it in any way.

There would be plenty more chances to do just that, she didn't doubt; but this time, thank God, she got away with it without incident.

She set Bo's things neatly aside, and then set about arranging the patient herself as comfortably as she could. She found some ratty cushions and piled a few more layers of blankets onto her quaking body.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Really fucking cold Lauren." Bo replied flatly. "I'm feeling really fucking cold."

She smiled at Lauren miserably, by way of apology, and Lauren smiled back.

"I'm sorry Bo. This will pass soon, promise."

This time she was already sweeping the lock of hair from Bo's face before she knew what she was doing. She pulled away as smoothly as she could affect when she caught Bo's eyes, and averted her gaze all too obviously.

But hadn't Bo craned, ever so slightly, to meet the curve of her hand?

Even if she had… well, she'd probably been taking comfort from the warmth of her touch and that was all, Lauren told herself, dearly hoping it was a lie even as she did. With a considerable effort, she turned away and stood back up and away.

"I'm uh... I'm gonna get us something to eat" she mumbled.


	9. Chapter 9

As comfortable as she could get, Bo settled into an uneasy half-sleep, only vaguely aware of the busy noises she heard Lauren making from the other side of the room. She wasn't _quite_ awake, but wasn't less aware of the gnawing cold either. She wasn't sure how long she spent in this twilight state before she was roused by the smell of food and a hand gently resting on her shoulder. It could have been minutes or years, minutes or years of godawful cold, she had no idea.

"Bo, I need you to sit up for a moment. It won't take long. You'll feel better with something warm in-"

She broke off.

"Um. You'll feel better" she said simply, after a moment.

Bo understood all these words dimly, but the prospect of sitting up felt like an Olympian trial even with Lauren's help. Her limbs were heavy, and uncooperative, and every movement robbed some inch of her of a little precious warmth.

When she had eventually struggled into a sitting position, Lauren found herself at another unjustly awkward precipice.

"Bo, do you want me to help you with this?"

Bo didn't comprehend the question immediately, and when she did her heart sank a little. She looked at Lauren, and for just a moment her face betrayed something of a cornered animal. Yes, she was still shaking far too much to feed herself soup, of all fucking things. Yes, Lauren was going to have to do it for her.

It was a close competition for which woman found the situation more uncomfortable – Bo, who had felled a mythological monster with sheer blunt force only a few hours earlier, and was now reduced to being spoonfed like a child; or Lauren, who'd had to impose the prospect on her. The doctor had fed patients before, but this was completely different, and it felt like an intrusion in some sense she couldn't put to words.

Eventually, Bo signalled a wordless surrender. Lauren hunkered down opposite her and as casually as she could affect, and offered her the first spoonful.

"Here comes the big aeroplane" she said through a laboured smile, an almost involuntary attempt at creasing the silence.

"That's not helping at all" replied Bo with a smirk, obviously grateful for the break in tension anyway.

At first, it was every bit as excruciating as either of them feared, but they soon relaxed into an only slightly awkward rhythm. Bo wouldn't have been able to recall what flavour the soup even was, but it was hot, and it was indeed some comfort.

As the initial tension slowly evaporated, and it gradually became awkward for a different reason. This close, Lauren was suddenly very aware that Bo was only loosely wrapped in _only_ that shirt. For her part, Bo kept getting hopelessly caught by those dark, sympathetic eyes. This close, there was nothing else either of them could pretend to be looking at; apart from, of course, exactly all the things they shouldn't _really_ be looking at.

Bo could see, with unwelcome clarity, just how conflicted Lauren was. Her demeanour was kind and professional, but her response to Bo's proximity was visible in the air around her. She was working very hard to seem so impartial, and that in itself was a gesture Bo found oddly endearing. A gesture was all it was – Lauren knew perfectly well Bo could see through her, it just seemed somehow polite to maintain some kind of mutual pretence anyway.

She was struck again by Lauren's capacity for compassion. She had seen it just as clearly when they were with the Wendigo earlier, too. Lauren handled the enormous, unconscious monster just as she would a live human patient; one with a healthy checkbook and an excellent lawyer. It didn't matter that the same animal could and would have killed her in the attempt, given a chance, it simply didn't occur to her to treat it any other way. In its sickened state, it had been in the Wendigo's nature to attack them; but it was just as fundamental to Lauren's nature to treat it considerately anyway.

So why, Bo suddenly, bitterly wondered, if she could be so gentle to a creature like that, in so many ways, could she have hurt me so much in the ways that mattered?

Bo caught those dark eyes again for a second, and couldn't possibly imagine.

By the time the spoon rattled in the bowl, tthey both almost sighed in relief. Bo could feel the cold crawling back into her belly already, but she did feel much better.

Lauren rested her hand on the side of Bo's face and guided her gently back down to the cushions. She didn't even try to evade eye contact this time.

"I'll be right here. If there's anything I can do, just ask."

Bo was sure she had plenty to ask Lauren, very sure - but the moments ground uselessly past and she found herself staying silent.

"Thanks" she said lamely.

She retreated back into the mess of blankets sullenly and rolled over, to bear out the unnatural cold alone.

Lauren nodded a response to nobody.

She hadn't technically lied to Bo. It was _technically_ true that there had never been a documented case of a chi feeder dying from this kind of tainted feed. But Wendigos were wilderness creatures - if somebody crossed paths with one and wound up dead from the resulting cold, then even if they were found, the cause of death would look like simple hypothermia. That was all just informed speculation on her part, of course – but still, Lauren was far more relieved than she'd let on when they'd managed to make it to the cabin. And she was very glad to see Bo doing better now.

She watched over Bo's restless bundled form for a few more moments, and then conceded some kind of silent defeat to the empty room.

It might be prudent, she decided, to busy her suddenly twitchy hands somehow. With a feeling near to relief, she remembered the packs they'd abandoned on the slope, and resolved to retrieve them. She started gathering her things to go back out of doors, and checked back on her patient.

Sure enough, Bo was lost in a fitful sleep. Her features were pained, and she murmured unhappily to herself, but she wasn't about to wake up. She seemed somehow smaller than life like this, and it pulled at something in Lauren's chest. She tore a page out of her notepad, and left an apologetic explanation of her absence next to the sleeping woman, just in case. It felt like she was doing something much more cruel, and she pulled the heavy cabin door shut with a disproportionate tug of guilt.

She had hardly stepped out into the bitter wind when she suddenly wondered what the hell had possessed her to even _try_ this stupid idea. It was lunacy; there was nothing in the other packs they needed immediately, and the risk of getting lost or hurt and separated from an incapacitated patient was unacceptable. She retreated, scolding herself. What the fuck had she been thinking?

She heaved the door closed after herself again, and shook her head. There was nothing so necessary out there, or so terrible here in the cabin, to possibly justify leaving Bo alone, she must have been out of her damn mind to even consider it. She sagged back against the door in defeat. What the hell had gotten into her? Was she really going to risk her own safety and abandon a patient to avoid some awkward smalltalk? Was it Bo she'd been trying to run away from? Grow the hell up, Lauren.

With Bo still asleep nothing left to be said or done, she had no distractions left from her own condition. Her shoulders were sore and her legs were leaden and, she realised, she was still wearing her own cold, damp clothes. The little bedroom yielded another massive flannel shirt, and she pulled it on over her underwear. She said a quiet, secular prayer of thanks for the absence of a mirror – a small mercy, sparing her an unwelcome ghost of her unfortunate late teenage phase, and one for which she was impossibly grateful.

She gathered up her own clothes to leave them by the fire, but they were discarded in a forgotten pile when she heard Bo call her name softly. She didn't quite _run_ to the other woman's side, but she certainly couldn't affect a veneer of cool professionalism by the time she stopped herself short in the middle of the living room.

"I'm right here, how are you feeling?"

Bo had to stir herself to respond, and Lauren wondered if she was even aware she'd just spoken.

"Don't want to just say "cold" again, but… that." She murmured, without turning around to face Lauren. "Don't the eskimos have a bunch of other words I could use?"

Lauren could have explained that "Inuit" was probably more proper; although that point was disputable. She could have explained that they were supposed to have many words for "snow", rather than cold, and she could have explained that all of this was a myth anyway. But she didn't. Just this once, it didn't even occur to her to offer anything but a sympathetic smile.

Bo, still huddled against herself in the blankets, didn't see it.

"Lauren" she said, carefully. "I missed you."

Lauren felt a ripple of guilt return for trying to leave, and wondered again what the hell had she been thinking.

"I'm sorry Bo, I was going to try for the packs, but…"

Bo gently cut her off.

"No, I mean… I've_ missed_ you."

"I've_ been_ missing you" she continued, with a very deliberate new emphasis.

Lauren stood rooted to the spot, speechless. Over her own shivering, Bo could hear her breathing, heavy and distressed with uncertainty.

For years, it seemed, the only motion in the room was that of the fire.

Tense moments turned over, and when, finally, Bo sensed movement near her, she thought for a second that her heart might stop. The blankets shifted and quickly resettled, and finally, finally, the heat of Lauren's body joined her own.

For the longest time they just lay there, in a tense, torturously chaste nearness, feeling each other's presence and listening to each other breathe. All too close and yet far too distant, and still far too unsure how to ford the gap safely.

I missed you so much, Bo thought simply and again, realising only afterwards that she'd said it aloud. And maybe she just imagined hearing a stifled, wounded sound from the other woman, but she didn't think so.

Finally, finally, an arm slipped around her body. Carefully, as if fearful of damaging something precious. It settled around her waist, and Bo slipped her own hand over it to keep it there.

For the first time in hours it seemed, she could feel warmth. The physical warmth of Lauren's body around her, and the warmth of the woman herself. It seemed as though the only heat in the_ world_ was Lauren. She guided the open hand up, under the shirt, over her heart and clasped it there, settling indulgently into Lauren's embrace. She was still cold, unnaturally cold, but that seemed to matter much less now. She just felt better; everything felt better, and Lauren was holding her. At last, at last, she was close. Close enough for Bo to smell clean blonde hair, close enough for Bo to feel delicate breaths on her skin, close enough to feel her heartbeat near her own. It was how things were supposed to be.

"Bo I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. For everything." she said, and every syllable seemed to weigh a tonne in the air. Bo thought she could hear the other woman's heart pound almost as clearly as she heard the threat of tears choke a tremble into her voice.

Bo swallowed, and made to shake her head.

"It doesn't matter" she said, although of course it all did.

Lauren's fingertips tucked another of her long dark locks away, and she heard her take a long, slow breath. Part of Bo hoped she was making a habit of that; part of her hated the fact that Lauren needed a silly bullshit reason just to touch her. She was about to say exactly that when she felt the other woman lean in, close enough for her lips to brush against her earlobe when she spoke, close enough to feel her speak.

"I swear I never meant to hurt you, I'd never _want_ to hurt you."

Bo clung to the hand on her chest fiercely in reply. The hold around Bo's body tightened a little, and Lauren shifted to guide her head into the crook of her other arm, bowing her head to rest her face in Bo's hair.

"Lauren, it's alright. It's done, it's just…"

Her eyes squeezed shut for fear the firelight would betray an unshed tear.

"It's done with." she whispered quietly, and finally.

Vaguely aware that she was still shivering, she settled again. All that mattered was that Lauren was there to watch and feel and brace her against every movement of her body. She was okay now – not because Lauren could keep her safe or warm, but because she was there.

Comfortable and feeling better than she had all night, she drifted into a sickly half sleep; but every time she surfaced, she could feel Lauren still there. Still awake, still pressed against her and still watching over her, still absorbing every shudder and twitch of Bo's body into her own. Finally, like this, she sank gratefully into a real, dead slumber.


	10. Chapter 10

She woke up and at first she wasn't sure where she was. It came back to her when she realised Lauren was still wrapped around her in a possessive, protective embrace. The fire had burned down, but her sickly chill was mostly gone at last. She could tell that it was still dark outside, although with the weather that probably didn't mean anything.

Sensing she was awake, Lauren stirred from a light doze. Her hand was still flat to Bo's rising and falling chest, and the other arm still cradled her head faithfully. Lauren's body answered every contour of her own, and their breaths and their heartbeats marked a matching time. Bo tried to imagine how she could possibly have lived without having her so near for so long.

They lay together in a charged silence for a while, fearful of breaking the spell, feeling each other's presence, breathing each other in.

Without a word, Lauren leaned in to slowly and deliberately press home a single, purposeful kiss on bare skin. Bo slipped an aching sigh, and instinctively craned to invite more attention.

It was such a simple gesture of presumed intimacy, but it dispelled any risk that could have remained of re-establishing the pretence. They were not simply two women taking comfort from one another's nearness, or friends finding a peace again. They weren't exes, or rivals or anything else - they were lovers who'd been parted. No more. No less. For a few short hours, they didn't have to pretend otherwise, and Lauren clearly intended to make that count for something.

As difficult and complicated as their relationship had gotten, right now it was easy to believe that perhaps it could be simple how it mattered. If Bo was in pain, Lauren would fix it. If Lauren was in danger, Bo would fix that. It was simple; as plain and true as a scientific law. It was all so simple without the real world to ruin it for them both. And for now, that could wait.

Bo released Lauren's hand and reluctantly made space between them to slip her borrowed shirt off. Lauren took the cue and pulled it off the rest of the way for her, planting more and more urgent kisses on her newly exposed shoulders and back as she did. Only then did the succubus realise with a private smile that the doctor was already in only her underwear.

Bo pivoted around, and for a moment, they just took each other in, in a slow and intimate silence. They searched each other's features for something neither of them could have named, and Bo traced a careless line on Lauren's face with her fingertips.

At last, as if seeing each other again for the first time in a hundred years, they closed in to a deep, needful kiss. She felt Lauren's hands frame her face, she felt Lauren's lips enquire gently of her mouth. As the final distance between them evaporated, it seemed sad and ridiculous that they had taken so long, _so long,_ to find their way back to this point. Why had they both gone without the touch, the taste, the trust of the other? Why had they taken so long, and made it so difficult? How could they have wasted so much_ time _when there was so little of it to be found for them?

As Lauren moved over her, as their hands began to eagerly map the curves of each other's bodies again, as tongues started to gently tease past lips, as kisses found each other at last, it all seemed such a waste. Their pace became greedier, hungrier, more demanding. They could have been together, they could have been finding ways to be together, all the time they were apart. All the seconds and minutes and hours they'd wasted, and for nothing that seemed of consequence now.

Lauren broke away gently, and now her kisses found Bo's jaw, her cheek, the tender point behind her ear. She felt her pendant swing free and hesitated. The prospect of ruining all they'd rebuilt together with one clumsy presumption reared in her mind, and she frowned.

"Bo, we don't have to do this now" she said quietly, although it didn't escape Bo's notice that she carried on gently nuzzling the same sensitive, tender point as she spoke, as if to reassure her of her _own_ intentions. "Not if you're not…"

Not what though? Not willing?

Able?

Certain?

But the thought process collapsed when she saw Bo's face cloud with a concern.

"Do you… do you not want to?" she asked, and Lauren practically laughed in reply.

"No! God no, it's not that." she said, betraying a little more incredulity than she intended. When she spoke again, it was as her smiling lips closed softly along the cleft of Bo's throat.

"But you know that, right?"

She laughed gently into Bo's skin.

"That's how it works. I always want to, and you always know."

Bo chuckled, but made no denials. It was true, after all. Lauren's aura always flared to fill the room when she knew Bo was near. From the start, so long ago, Bo delighted to know that she made the careful doctor burn so brightly. Later, when everything between them was bittered and sore, she took a simpler pleasure in seeing proof of the hold she still had.

But it was true; always, she always knew. And Lauren for her part made little actual effort to hide or dampen it on a level visible to Bo. No matter the status of their relationship, Lauren had never actually pretended to feel less than she did, not really. All of that was an ugly memory of an ugly time, and one that blessedly disintegrated under the delicate attention this beautiful woman was lavishing across her throat and shoulders.

Bo's hands slipped eagerly around the blonde's heaving torso and released her bra clasp. Lauren shrugged the suddenly unwelcome garment off. With a brazen grin, she stretched back to offer Bo an unimpeded view of her body, and the succubus heard herself concede an involuntary whimper. Her breasts were beautiful, Lauren was beautiful, and Bo told her so, even as she set about them reverently. She heard Lauren's soft murmurs, felt her arch to offer more of herself to her mouth and hands, and obliged with relish. Lauren's hand sank into Bo's hair and pulled her closer, firmer against herself.

In a strange way, Bo sometimes wished other people could see this side of the woman; almost as much as she revelled in having it to herself. Most people treated Lauren like she was made of ice; a colourless, lifeless shell lent authority only by the Ash's grace. Bo knew better - Bo knew she felt everything. Past her carefully constructed facade, she absorbed every care, every slight, every wound, and she loved fiercely. She felt everything, and she endured everything, and for far too long, she had done it alone. This woman, gripping a straddled lover by her hair, this was Lauren. This was the real Lauren, naked in all ways. Passionate, protective, and unbroken by five years of duty and defeat. Bo adored her for all that, and feared for her too.

She mouthed and sucked and nipped first one breast, then the other, and was rewarded with an intoxicating moan that might have been her name. She was hardly aware of her own bra falling away, but her whole body responded when Lauren's elegant hands glided over her own naked breasts instead. She broke away to moan aloud herself, and Lauren's lips found her own again.

She'd often wondered what Lauren might have been like six or seven years ago, before she had spent so much of her heart and soul in cruel, useless slavery. Bo saw a wicked glint in those soft eyes, and felt expert fingers trap her nipples with devilish intent. They pinched a little, and again, and the doctor observed the effect with an impish bitten lip. As Bo hissed and winced and smiled to those cunning, artful touches, it seemed to her that perhaps she had an idea of that younger, freer Lauren after all.

Lauren's lips replaced the tantalising fingers of one hand, eliciting delicious moans from the other woman. She gently teased the sensitive, stiffening nipple with her tongue, welcoming more and less, more and less into her mouth, and Bo was helpless to her.

She was already so lost she was only barely aware of the gentle, insistent tug at her waistband. She hardly heard herself whine in anticipation even when her underwear slipped away. Lauren grinned wolfishly, giving herself a long moment to savour every detail of the flawless creature waiting anxiously for her. She could be a torturously patient woman at times, and hearing her lover's mounting anticipation brought out mischief in her. Succubus or not, Bo was a stunningly beautiful woman. Every bit of her was perfect, sensual and precious, and Lauren appreciated all of it with a discerning eye.

She leaned back in, taking Bo's earlobe in her mouth and tugged gently as her hands moved down Bo's body. She whispered into Bo's ear again, and this time, her breaths were hot and urgent.

"Bo, listen… Feeding won't help with the cold, but it might take your mind off it."

Bo needed a moment, as Lauren's mouth was starting to plot a leisurely trail across her chest, but eventually shook her head. Mercifully, she didn't press the issue, because God help her, Bo wasn't sure she could refuse a second time. With an effort, she cleared the haze and snapped out of it. This simply wouldn't do - Lauren had taken care of her all night already. She wanted to show Lauren how grateful she really was, she meant to _show_ her all the things she couldn't always say. She fully intended to do all the things a succubus should, and to do them for Lauren.

She dismissed the last nags of cold and easily shifted Lauren around onto her back. Lauren's impulse was to protest, but the succubus' mouth articulated her intentions so very persuasively on her skin that she couldn't find an objection for the life of her. It was hard to believe this was the same woman who seemed so defeated and ill just a few hours earlier, but Bo was… ah, well, she was Bo. Her touch wound a maddeningly slow path up an elegant limb, and Lauren's legs shifted apart in reply. Her hand lingered on the underside of her knee before finding her smooth thigh, and Lauren found that all the patience she would have credited herself with begin to strain after all.


	11. Chapter 11

Bo sensed Lauren already tensing in anticipation and smiled.

Her kisses sought out every available range and line of vulnerable skin in turn, and now, at last, she understood just how much she really had been craving Lauren all this time. She realised now she'd looked for her in every woman she'd been with since they'd parted, and they'd all been wanting. None had Lauren's flawless skin, or Lauren's frame, or Lauren's tiny birthmark here or barely visible little scar there. None had been Lauren, so they hadn't been enough.

And oh, she was incredibly responsive. Bo shifted a little to take Lauren's thigh between her own, and heard the faint sound she made when she felt Bo's heat for her; felt her move herself against her, felt her fingers come far enough to tease and tantalise, maddeningly shy of what she needed. To watch Lauren's whole body reply to what she did was absolutely intoxicating. When a muscle flexed, when she moaned softly, Bo's own breath hitched in response. When at last Bo's touch slid home to her sex, Lauren gasped abruptly and Bo was mesmerised.

But still, she was careful only to stoke her low ache; to tease along her folds, to torture her without threatening to deliver her any time soon. Bo let her wait, just a little longer, savouring her abandon a little longer - until she felt Lauren's hips lift so slightly in demand, until she just started to whimper in despair. Now her strokes moved to Lauren's most sensitive centre at last. Now, she was deliberate, now she was exact and obliging. Lauren would have cried out then, she would have arched right from the floor at this new intensity if Bo hadn't caught her up in a fierce, driving kiss at precisely the same moment, and took all of her breath right away.

Bo's touches became more artful, as she took great pleasure in rediscovering her body in the most delicious detail, in reclaiming her so intimately. Every stroke, every caress, every mischievous tease was answered, and Lauren strained for them so exquisitely. It was so rare to see Lauren surrender so wholly, to anyone or anything, and Bo drank it in. She listened for each wanton, fitful sound from Lauren's softly parted mouth, and delighted in the telling, wanting roll of her hips. She savoured the primal, gutteral grunt Lauren made when she dipped into her. She felt the abrupt sting of nails drawing involuntarily into her skin, she felt her lover close around her fingers as she moved in and out of her, she claimed one gluttonous kiss after another. She kissed and kissed and kissed her body, so hungry for her, for all of her. She couldn't help herself; she wanted every single inch of her, more than anything else in the world.

She had meant to take it very slowly - to explore Lauren's every curve and plane and peak and valley at leisure, to tantalize her a little, to take her time. But now, seeing Lauren like this, she realised she couldn't even make_ herself_ wait any longer. She just wanted to give Lauren everything she had, all at once, always. Hadn't they wasted enough time already?

Bo loved using her mouth, but this first time, after so long, she didn't want to miss a detail. Her slow, expert strokes became more focussed, and the rise and fall of the doctor's chest told her more than she needed to know. The succubus could read pleasure in a body with unnatural artistry; she wouldn't have needed to hear the catching in Lauren's breath or her sublimely needy whimpers, or even feel the first touches of spasm, to sense she was right on the threshold.

Lauren started to feel the edges of the earth open beneath her, and suddenly wondered if was Bo like this with her other lovers. Did she hold them like she cherished them alone? Did she kiss them like she needed them to feel loved? Did she promise them all those intoxicating things, did she touch them so fluently in their bodies? The doctor in her wanted to be realistic, and say yes, of course a succubus did. It was safer to assume so, safer to accept that and stop dwelling on the question.

But the woman she was, the woman felt Bo's hands trace her face as much as she pressed against her – she sensed the pleas in how she kissed her, she heard the beatitudes she whispered in her ear, and could not be so sure. And when, blessedly, Bo's stroke firmed just then, she forgot it if even mattered.

She made to bury her head in her shoulder reflexively, but one strong hand fixed her down. She caught a glimpse of Bo's eyes, and understood instinctively - I want to see. I want to stay with you all the way, I want to see right into you when it happens. There was nothing of possession or pride in it - it was a sacred communion, and Bo wanted to witness it with her. Lauren willed herself to meet Bo's fierce, blue gaze with all she had for as long as she could. Just this was practically enough to finish her, but the succubus managed to keep her exactly where she was for one, final unbelievable age longer. She heard a voice beg, barely recognising it as her own, and just as she was cresting the edge, just as she thought she might lose her mind, Bo drove her over at last with a final, perfect movement and a sudden, simultaneous pulse.

She arched rigid, and cried out only once as she was released at last. There were to be no outbursts or theatrics with Lauren, Bo knew - with Lauren, it was more like an implosion. Every defence collapsed, everything about her surrendered, all the lines of her body disappeared and she disintegrated. There were no outbursts or theatrics, no, but Bo could read everything the woman's body had to say, the secret volumes she was entrusted with. She brought Lauren down gently, guiding her back in with a few more spare, tender touches. The succubus held her close enough to feel the heat of her flushed skin, to read every subtle muscle, to listen for the quiet, precious sounds of Lauren's ecstasy. It was a sacrament, and she was privileged to it. She drove one last kiss of appreciation into Lauren's shoulder and only hoped it spoke as clearly.

Lauren didn't register when the pinning hand had released her, but she felt Bo cradle her trembling form close, to ride out the aftershocks together. Still sensitive, she let a soft whimper of protest when Bo moved to slip free. Bo smiled apologetically and waited a little longer, this time capturing her breath in a more tender, gentle kiss first.

The lovers sank back onto the covered floor together, bundled up in each other. She took a moment to brush darkened blonde hair from Lauren's face and kissed her forehead, knowing it was an entirely selfish gesture. Spent and sheened from exertion as she was, Lauren was more beautiful than ever, and Bo wanted to enjoy the sight for as long as possible before she could begin to compose herself. It seemed to Bo that Lauren, like this, unguarded and undone, was the purest thing she'd ever seen. She wondered once again how she had ever resisted running, crawling, grovelling back for a chance to witness it again. For a succubus, sex was life itself, a necessity; but as she watched Lauren gradually reclaiming her senses, she couldn't imagine ever wearying of such a holy kind of pleasure.

Gradually though, Bo could sense her beginning to gather herself back together. Bo held her a little tighter and Lauren rested her face against her skin. They stayed like that, wrapped up in each other, and Bo marvelled at how vulnerable, how delicate, how human Lauren seemed now in her arms. She was so strong in so many ways that it was easy to forget; but she was fragile and precious and she trusted Bo with her life every time they made love.

Even with her fading chill and stirred hunger, Bo was feeling far better than before, but it dawned on her that Lauren was probably exhausted._ She_ wasn't tired, at all, now - but now she thought of it, she wasn't sure the doctor had really slept while she'd been out of it. She shuffled around to manoeuvre their bodies into a more comfortable sleeping position and shift the bedding around a little, and smiled when Lauren cuddled in close against her.

But she smiled again when Lauren settled no longer than it took to recover, before shifting back onto her back.

"If you've got something to prove, I'm right here" she said, with an audible smirk. She propped herself up on her elbows and tipped her head in a challenge, and Bo knew she would have worshipped her right there and then.

"_D__emanding_" Bo chuckled, as she climbed over her as bidden and kissed her again. Lauren caressed her face tenderly, sliding her fingers around to sink into her dark hair.

Bo's blue eyes kept her gaze with a wicked fire as she crawled down her body.

They stayed on her even when Bo paused to press a kiss to her thigh before she began. They stayed on her even as her hand seized abruptly in Bo's hair, even as her head fell back in pleasure, even when she thought she saw stars.


	12. Chapter 12

It had to be really early, but white sunlight was already beaming through the windows. It lit Lauren's dozing features perfectly. Bo was very pleased to detect the trace of an afterglow lustre still on her skin, and the tempting suggestion of a satisfied half smile even in her deep sleep. She was the very picture of a woman comfortable, contented and thoroughly fucked, and Bo relished the view very much.

They'd made love for a long time. And that's what it had been, love making – Bo wanted her to know something she couldn't quite give a voice, so she'd told her again and again with her body, instead. Lauren usually enjoyed setting the pace in bed, but Bo had wanted to spoil her so much that Lauren quickly found it was worth letting her.

She would probably ache all over when she woke up though, and considering the hike they'd have back, Bo felt a pang of guilt about that. But it had been so heady and so precious that she didn't think Lauren would have wanted her to stop anyway. She could be surprisingly, delightfully forthright about her sexual wants and needs, and Bo had no doubt that if she had really wanted to rest more than she wanted Bo, she would have made it known.

She was considering how to extricate herself from the covers without waking her when it dawned on her that she didn't actually have to. She could stay right where she was. Nothing was wrong. No one was in danger, they had nowhere to go and nobody waiting on them. It was a rare luxury, one she found herself almost superstitious about preserving.

Bo settled back in against the other woman happily, and felt her stir.

"I'm already awake, if you're going somewhere?" Lauren murmured through a drowsy smirk.

"Is it too early for some kind of doctor's appointment joke?"

Lauren groaned half heartedly. "Yes. Absolutely. Always."

Bo laughed, delighted by the slight grain in Lauren's voice after last night.

"Then no, I'm pretty happy right where I am." She shifted around.

"It's just… we haven't really had a lot of chances to do this before, now that I think of it. I mean usually I'd have either run off, or stormed out or snuck away by now" she said, with a grin.

Lauren smiled, but there was just a flicker of hurt in her eyes, and Bo scolded herself for misjudging. Rather than apologise and reopen the issue, she snuggled against the other woman a little closer instead, and settled there. Lauren's stiffened muscles relaxed, and they stayed like that for a while, trying not to hear each moment tick away from them.

"I've been thinking about it a lot Bo" Lauren started eventually, her chest moving pleasingly against Bo as she spoke. "And I figure since I got the drinks and food last night, the least you can do is make me breakfast this morning. Just this once."

Bo groaned, and Lauren's fingers idly traced and twined through her own. She had half-wondered if she'd heard Lauren's stomach rumble.

"Alright fair's fair. I'll scare us up my speciality. I hope you like "Creepy cabin guy's canned goods, and maybe some of whatever you packed". It'll be just like Momma used to make."

"Well gosh, when you sell it like that, it sounds irresistible" Lauren murmured into her hair, pulling her in against herself.

"But maybe not just yet, right?" Bo said, grinning comfortably. She definitely heard Lauren's stomach rumble a second time, and resigned herself to her fate.

"I'll be right back."

She kissed Lauren's cheek, before grudgingly leaving the warmth of the covers - and a slightly grumpy, muttering doctor - to see to breakfast. By the time she pulled an abandoned shirt around herself, she could already hear Lauren's breathing settle back to her familiar sleeping rhythm. Bo decided that, all things considered, she had probably earned the lie in. They had kept each other up most of the night, and the fire was still smouldering a little, so Lauren must have woken up at some point besides and thrown some more fuel on it. She gathered up the components of a hearty camper breakfast, and left them aside to be prepared whenever she awoke.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she decided to have a look around the place in early light. The bathroom was basic, but, blessedly, there had been a working toilet. Clearly, the occupant had made provisions for a few creature comforts after all. She was equally pleased to discover hot water from the faucet. The guy must have set up some kind of water tank heated from the fire, and maybe some kind of pump. Bo figured that out here, in the land of no daytime television, there was probably plenty of time to come up with stuff like that.

There was even a shower in the corner too, apparently. A basic one, but he'd put effort into it. The two waterproofed walls leading down to some kind of salvaged… something which functioned as the tray. She puzzled for a while over why the hell he'd bothered putting a shower curtain up when he was a million miles from anybody, but sure enough, when she tried the little valve, it worked just fine, and after some rattling of pipes, a serviceable stream of decently hot water replied.

She breathed in sharply when two hands slipped around onto her stomach, and then relaxed back into Lauren's arms.

"There's probably not a whole lot of that hot water you know, we really shouldn't waste it" she purred.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you back up" Bo said a little guiltily

"Wide awake I'm afraid" Lauren said, without a hint of regret to be detected anywhere. "And we really should be efficient about the hot water."

Bo opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Lauren pushed her gently forward and pulled her shirt off again. She guided her around for a kiss and Bo let a yelp of delight when she found herself unceremoniously backed up against the shower wall. Lauren's whole body drove her back, and guided her leg up and around herself for support.

Bo knew her eyes must be flaring, but Lauren gazed right back into them. For a moment, Bo saw something in her expression that she could not read - but a second later, her head was yanked backwards, the pads of Lauren's fingertips found her firmly and her mind went blank. She started trying to ask her something, but her words vanished in a gasp as Lauren moved again.

There were no quiet loving promises and there was nothing gentle at all. There was hot water and muscle and it felt good. Lauren's rhythm was forceful and focussed, and her kisses into Bo's throat and shoulder were carnal and compulsive.

As she quickly started to get close, she thought for a moment she might buckle and fall. Lauren sensed her falter and made sure to drive her back to the wall as she lifted her right into a blunt, thunderous orgasm. Bo cried out and came hard and loud against her. Lauren held her right where she was as and gave no yield at all as she rose and fell. Bo threw her arms loosely around her neck for support, and sagged against her, panting.

Only then, as she surfaced, could she feel Lauren's body soften against her. Suddenly, she pulled her close, and just held her jealously to herself for a few moments. Bo heard and felt her wracked breathing, and wished to hell she knew what to say, wished she knew how to ask how to help, or what she might have done wrong.

Lauren's breathing steadied, and her embrace lost its steel. Bo's hand moved to slip between them, but Lauren gently caught it where it was. She shook her head in a soft "no". She kissed Bo's hand gently and held it flat against her cheek.

"Just let me have this Bo, please" she said, and still, her expression was unreadable. Bo looked at her for a moment, uncomprehending, and nodded.

So they held each other in the last of the hot water, trying to cling to everything, trying to remember everything, trying to take it all with them; and when Lauren kissed her on the shoulder it felt like a brand.


	13. Chapter 13

"How long do we have? Before they come to _rescue_ us?" Bo asked eventually. Lauren didn't answer right away. Her hand carried on softly stroking Bo's arm apparently of its own accord.

They had dried themselves and retreated back to their bedding nest to eat and steal a few more moments warmth. Bo didn't know what to make of what happened in the shower, but whatever was going on in Lauren's head, she could feel the walls around it already. She knew by now that pushing would only reinforce them. She had decided to make the best of their time together rather than risk probing it. It seemed to be what Lauren wanted.

"Noon at the earliest. Maybe a little longer. The trackers won't be able to trail us after the storm, they'll have to search. We still have a few hours, they won't even take off until first light."

Bo absorbed this quietly for a while, and it was Lauren's turn to try to figure out what she was thinking.

"I don't want them to find us here," Bo said finally. "I don't want them to come here, I don't want to have to see them here."

Not here, in our own little world, where we got to be a normal couple for a few hours. Don't let them track snow and mud into this place. Let me pretend we made the decision to go without having to know that otherwise, they'd come to take us.

"I just want to keep this ours."

She couldn't see Lauren's expression, but her hand slipped over Bo's own in reassurance.

"We can head out and meet them at the pier, if you're feeling well enough for the hike."

Bo relaxed against her again.

"I'd like that. And yeah, I actually feel pretty great. Once you get over the shitty side effects, ZomBambi brought the good shit."

Lauren chuckled. She leaned forward a little to look Bo over, and gave her verdict in the form of an approving murmur.

"I'm very, very glad to hear it. We haven't had nearly enough time as it is."

"We should make it count then, I guess" said Bo through a lascivious grin, though her eyes didn't smile at all.

Lauren, not fooled, answered by squeezing her hand.

Later, as they gathered their little inventory in silence, Bo entertained fantasies of finding another cabin just like this one. They would hide out there together, and never be found. They could be together and provide for each other and because they owed nobody anything, nobody would ever come after them to ruin it. Bo would age like Lauren, or else Lauren wouldn't at all, and neither of them would ever cry or bleed or speak in anger because they understood how much it hurt to be apart. Lauren would find a solution for Bo's hunger, and Bo would keep Lauren happy and free for ever and ever amen.

It was silly, of course, but it made the task that little bit easier. For every item they packed away, the cabin became less and less theirs. Without those things, as generic as they were, it was just somewhere a dead man used to live. Lauren seemed to stand a little straighter, a little stiffer, a little further away, the closer they got to leaving, and Bo felt the unwelcome change like a temperature drop.

When she started to dress herself again, Bo grabbed her hands and pulled her into an abrupt hold. She yielded into it, realising suddenly what Bo already had – that this was the last time they could be simply and freely intimate, without worrying about anybody or anything else. They could walk back to the pier together, they could fly back together, they could work together, but this was the last time they could simply have each other without the rest of the world or anything else getting in the way. At least for now, Bo made sure to remind herself. Just for now.

This time, when they broke apart, their gazes didn't meet.

The climb back seemed even bigger in daylight. The slope was daunting from this direction, and the snow had only deepened overnight. Bo made an excellent and expletive laden case for abandoning their missing pack wherever it was buried, and Lauren conceded the point. After all, she reasoned, what was a couple of hundred dollars' worth of North Face on top of thirty five thousand dollars' worth of a handtooled scrap metal Bo had discarded the day before?

They resolved too, to skirt around the hill and most of the forest. They would instead head to the shore, and follow that back to the pontoon. It was a more forgiving route, albeit far longer, but Lauren considered that a bonus in itself. Every step brought them a little bit closer to the end of their time together,_ really_ together, and they were in no hurry to do that.

She had considered, for a moment, discussing what would happen when they got back – where they would go from here, where they would stand – but of course, that was the problem. Neither of them had an answer for those questions, and that in itself was too much to confront. And neither of them wanted to spend the last few hours of this time together thinking about something ugly. So they'd set out mostly in silence, Bo charging a little too deliberately ahead of her. Lauren wasn't sure if Bo was trying to prevent her from seeing her expression, or just afraid to glance back at hers.

It was a shame the mood was so sombre, because the view when they got to the shoreline was absolutely breathtaking. It really was about as pristine a wilderness as Lauren had ever seen. The water was so still and crystal clear that she could have stood and counted every stone on the bed, if she'd wanted. And over it, the opposite shore sloped up into chunks of thick, frosted woodland or broke into sheer rock faces. The valley walls framed incredible slashes of cold blue sky at the peaks, and ran all the way down into small fords and bays she could see into the distance.

The weather had already been so thick when they arrived that she hadn't realised how massive it all was. The spaces and the mountains and even the sky itself seemed bigger than back home. Looking at the sheer scale of everything she could see, it was hard to imagine that there was any other universe anywhere else, where lives could be bounded by walls and rules and orders and ownership. Maybe the loner in the cabin wasn't so crazy after all, she thought, and with the looming uncertainty of what waited back in civilisation, it was especially easy to believe.

She could tell by the tension in Bo's profile that she was, perhaps, not as appreciative of the panorama. She thought about asking her to stop and just take it all in with her for a moment, but the succubus slowed to a stop anyway.

Bo looked about, agitated.

"Do you smell something?"

Lauren looked at her blankly. She almost laughed, but she could see from Bo's demeanour that she wasn't kidding.

"Something nasty?" she clarified, somewhat redundantly.

"Ah… no" Lauren replied slowly. "But… your senses are a keener than mine. What's it like?"

Bo peered into the distance, gravely.

"It smells a whole lot like something dead. I think it's coming from somewhere up ahead. Do Wendigos like… nest or anything, are we about to walk into its meat locker?"

Lauren shook her head.

"No, they're typically semi-migratory grazers, they don't hoard food" Lauren said thoughtfully. "It could be a conventional predator kill, but there aren't any large carnivores documented on the island recently."

Bo thought this over.

"Maybe we should double around and head back through the forest. That would probably be way safer, right?"

Lauren frowned.

"It's a long way. And if there is a large predator we don't know about in the area, and we're close enough to catch _its_ scent, then it's almost certainly caught _ours._ We'd be just putting ourselves at an even more serious disadvantage in the trees and in the snow."

Bo thought about this.

"Okay. I guess whatever it is, if it's dead, it can't hurt us, but…Stay behind me, right?"

Bo stepped forward and led on, cautiously.

A few minutes later, Lauren herself thought she could smell it too, just barely, that dead meat signature in the air. She breathed a guilty sigh of relief when they finally found the source of it – a mostly defleshed human body, lying flat on its back on the shoreline rocks, framed by a few scattered bits and pieces of cloth. Dead bodies she could handle.

"I guess we've found our gracious host after all" Bo said, looking a little guiltily relieved.


	14. Chapter 14

Lauren unpacked some things and started narrating notes into a little dictaphone. She started a preliminary examination of the body, while Bo stood over the scene as a patient sentinel. The doctor assumed she was keeping an eye out for any sudden threats while she was concentrating - but she was not displeased to catch a glimpse of Bo's eyes on her as she worked instead.

The first thing she'd noticed was a fresh scar on the ledge above. Along with the freshly jagged rocks nearby, it suggested he had fallen close to where he lay. Deep, clean gnaw grooves in some of the bone matched very neatly to Wendigo jaw structure, but they were likely post mortem. There was a little shatter damage to the bones from the fall, but nothing that leaped out as the definitive cause of death. It could well have been a soft tissue hemorrhage injury, but any evidence of that was gone by now. She couldn't say, from this rough and ready initial impression, if he had survived the initial fall and crawled this far with his last strength, or if he had been killed instantly, and only dragged a little from the spot as the thing ate him afterwards.

"Unusually, the body remains mostly articulated despite having clearly been exposed for some time. It doesn't seem like any other scavengers had made use of it at all" she said to the recorder.

Bo wrinkled her nose a little at this.

"Well, it's just that big carnivores can afford to eat the… ah… good parts, they tend to be specialised. More adaptable scavengers can eat and digest whatever's leftover once the juicy bits have been taken, so they'll trail after a primary predator as a food source. There are even some of fae species who do the same, follow a primary predator to make use of their kills."

"Yeah I know." Bo said flatly.

Something in her expression tempted Lauren to enquire further, but something about her sudden unease warned her off, for now. There was a story here Lauren wasn't privy to, but this was not the right time. A tense second of unexpected silence ground past.

"Anyway," Bo offered, with plastic levity "- Maybe the guys lower down the food chain were still too afraid of disturbing Buddy Wendigo's leftovers in case he came back for the rest, or maybe he just ate_ them_ all too, while his fit of the munchies was raging."

Bo's turn of phrase was colourful, but her reasoning was sound.

"Could be. Some kind of pheromone territory marker or even a reflexive ward of some kind, although that would be more like Trick's territory. I'll have to look into it on our return, I definitely haven't seen it any observations like it in the existing literature."

She sensed Bo was getting restless, and started to finish up.

"So uh… what happens him now? We can't just leave him here. I mean… tough as it is for _me_ to believe, even your healing hands have their limits."

Lauren caught the glint in Bo's eye just fine.

"Well… the condition the remains are in, I'm not sure we could carry them back intact even if we wanted to. I could flag the location and request a retrieval when we've met the team, but honestly, I'm not sure if they'd bother approving it, Wendigos with Blackwood's have provided plenty of kills in the past, I'm not sure I could make a case for a specimen protocol given the difficulty involved."

Bo quirked an eyebrow a little impatiently. Lauren sighed.

"He's not going to get a funeral either way, Bo. I'm sorry. He doesn't have any family, even if I could pull some strings and get him retrieved under the auspices of research, the best he'd get would be a cursory examination and disposal at the compound. You and I can't bring him back, and they probably won't_ take_ him back, and honestly… I'm not sure it's what he would have wanted anyway. This is where he _chose_ to be. He chose to live and die out here."

Her gaze dropped away.

"We don't all get that Bo, but he did. He chose. I don't think it would be respecting that to have him shipped back to the lab to be once-overed by a tech and incinerated now."

Bo almost reached out to take her hand in reassurance, and wasn't sure why she didn't. She nodded softly instead.

"Okay. So what else can we do instead?"

Lauren thought about it, her breaths misting the air pensively.

"I suppose the most environmentally respectful thing to do would be to… leave him here. I would imagine the Wendigo scent markers, if that's what they are, will weather away, and then…"

"Everything else around here can tear him into Kibbles n' Bits and blah blah blah, Circle of Life whatever?"

Lauren gave an embarrassed shrug. She'd expected it to sound much better than it did.

"It _would_ be the most natural course of action" she added feebly.

Bo glowered.

"No. Fuck that. Shitty things aren't any less shitty because they're "natural". Fuck natural, the guy should have something better than that. "

Lauren sighed inwardly and looked around.

"Well… the ground's too hard to dig. But… we could use the rocks. Build a kind of cairn?"

Bo guessed what she meant by cairn. She mulled this over for a moment, and nodded.

"Better than nothing. It's something. Yeah, okay, cairn it is."

She started gathering the largest rocks she could find and carefully stacking them around the body. She was strong, and it didn't take long, but Lauren knew it couldn't last and Bo probably did too. Sooner or later, weather or scavengers would dislodge the rocks and pick the carcass clean and scatter the bones until nothing remained. But that wasn't the point – the point was to do something, something to defy the inevitable. Some gesture that was _meant,_ rather than just meekly surrendering to the way things have always happened before.

Lauren helped stabilise the construction with some smaller rocks, and they finished up. It was rough, but as Bo said, it was something.

"I feel like we should say some words for him or whatever. But… I don't know, I'm no good at that stuff. I'm guessing you aren't either?"

Lauren shook of her head in confirmation.

"Well… I guess we're done here then."

She gave the new grave a little nod of respect, and Lauren found herself doing the same.

They set out again without a word. Bo returned to whatever stormcloud thoughts she was lost in, and Lauren left her to them. She tried to occupy herself again with the spectacular setting but found it had lost its charms. The sky and scenery was just as stunning, but the magic was gone somehow.

Because it was an illusion, really, this picture postcard serenity. An easy, easy mirage to buy into. It all seemed so peaceful, and perfect, it was easy to forget how ferociously hostile this landscape had been only the night before. And as impossibly still as it all looked, somewhere on the slopes of the valley, right now, she knew, something was killing something else to live. Something was starving to death, something was dying in pain. In the stillness, the dramatic valley walls on the other shore seemed much closer than she knew they were in reality - but the still water was deeper than it looked, and could be murderously cold to the unwary. Right now it looked like the garden of Eden, but it wasn't. This was somewhere a man could live for over a decade only to die a painful, lonely death over a single bad step.

No. This place was no paradise, no more than the world they came from was any bastion of civilisation by comparison. It was just beholden to different food chains and loaded with different pitfalls. And all of that, was, of course, natural. That was just the way it was. City or wilderness, there was no escape the laws of predator and prey, or from the savage unfairness of pure, dumb chance that could strike at any moment. Lauren looked out at the mountains, and their scale seemed to feel just as oppressive as it had seemed liberating just a few hours before. Any minute out here was just as stolen as it would be anywhere else.

They didn't say much for the rest of the trail.

When they reached a clearing, Bo tensed rigid. Lauren saw her breathe in the clear air for a few seconds.

"'Plane's on the way" she said, and as they walked, Lauren could hear it too. They glimpsed its black outline through a break in the tree cover as it turned to steer into the bay, and lost sight of it again.

Bo didn't remember when Lauren might have caught her hand again, but when they were close enough to hear new voices, she felt it slip free.

The Ash's men had disembarked and fanned out as if staging an invasion, and held their positions as if they couldn't even see either of the women. Lauren knew what that meant - the search and rescue element of their brief came second to their primary role of guarding The Ash. He had come for them personally.

When the two women broke the tree line, The Ash stepped out of the plane, looking impossibly expensive and glamourous on the rickety timber of the pontoon.

She was almost flattered to think she was a valuable enough asset to warrant a personal appearance, but quickly, she realised there was more to it than that.

"It's good of you to welcome us in, Ms. Dennis" he said, pointedly ignoring her. Lauren sensed Bo bristle immediately at this, but when she cast a glance at Lauren, she bit her tongue.

"Yeah well, I was raised smalltown like that."

"So I'm informed, yes. Still, it saves us some trouble. We thought we might have to come looking for you on foot if you hadn't made it back to the rendezvous, which would have been a cause for some concern."

"I'm touched." Bo drawled.

He ignored her, and only now turned to glare at Lauren.

"We had some very unusual technical complications. It seems someone with very privileged clearances tampered with our satellite maps in a very deliberate way. Several sectors in this region seem to have been deliberately obscured for some reason. They covered their tracks remarkably well, too, we almost didn't catch the change at all. My people tell me it seems to have been done to obscure a building, some little shack to the North of here."

Bo could feel the fury under his measured tone, and felt her fists clench involuntarily in response.

"I'm sure I can't possibly imagine why anyone would do that, knowing the potential consequences in store for them."

Not a fibre of Lauren's body betrayed a thing.

"I'll be sure to look into it when we're home, sir."

His gaze narrowed.

"Yes, it will have to be investigated Doctor. And then I mean to review the privileges that made it possible, and who has access to them going forward."

He turned on his heel to bark some instructions to his goons, and only then did Lauren return Bo's glance with the very faintest of knowing glints.

With The Ash in earshot, Lauren clearly didn't want to talk, and they took seats on opposite sides of the aisle as the engines roared to life. As the plane doubled back for home in a wide arc, they both stared out their windows and away from each other.

Bo found herself looking to see if she could find the clearing where the fight had happened, but it all looked so different from up here. The Wendigo was probably long gone by now anyway, back into the woods.

Lauren, from her seat, looked for the cabin, but it would probably be hidden against the landscape from this height, especially now it had started to snow again in earnest. She supposed that even their footprints there and back were probably almost gone already. The water was getting restless and dark under the new snowclouds, and the valley walls bore many more shadows without the morning sunlight to brighten them.

Out on the slopes, she knew, some animal would be hunting another. But it wouldn't_ always_ catch it.

The End.

* * *

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Thank you for reading.


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